by Lone Theils
‘Oh, OK. So I can stop looking for him in the sports section, then,’ she said. The bell above the door rang, and Benita hung up.
X
Three days later when Nora had put the finishing touches to her story and was about to place it into the claws of the Crayfish, a text message arrived. It was a link to Reuters news agency. The telegram was short.
It stated that the UK Home Office would be setting up a special investigative committee to carry out an in-depth enquiry into security in British prisons after an inmate had been found close to death, brutally beaten up in the showers at Wolf Hall Prison. It was, the telegram explained, the notorious serial killer William Hickley, better known as Bill Hix, whose case was under review following the new, macabre discoveries of his crimes.
Nora mulled it over for a moment, then added a single sentence to the conclusion of her story: ‘William Hickley is now back in Wolf Hall Prison, where he is expected to spend the rest of his life.’
Then she hit ‘send’.
She heard a throat being cleared behind her. ‘Are you done?’
‘Sort of. I just need to check something. I’ve got a job to do, you know.’
‘I dare you to come over here and say that again,’ Andreas said, flinging aside the duvet.
She was totally up for that — only suddenly she couldn’t quite remember what she was going to say. Or why.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Søren and Sune who turned up in London and brought me chai-hitos because they believed in Nora. A special thank you to the lovely and eagle-eyed editors at L&R, who have gone through the book and thus saved me from major howlers and errors. If any still exist, it is certainly not their fault.
Thank you also to my lovely friends, who have read and sometimes kept me company or in general tolerated and encouraged me, as I sat writing in holiday cottages, in cafés, on a mountaintop outside Amalfi and in other people's dining rooms.
Viv. I have a thousand things to thank you for, and punctuation is the least of them.
Thank you also to John Stead, the very kind and knowledgeable fireman who helped me solve a few technical issues on how to start a fire. Your kindness is very much appreciated.
Hazel, the ‘reading photographer’, thank you for your amazing pictures and friendship.
And finally a special thank you to Alex and Errol for keeping me sane during editing by willingly letting me punch and kick you (or the pads, at least) a couple of times a week. It made all the difference.
Fatal Crossing is work of fiction. Characters, plot and locations such as Wolf Hall and Brine are exclusively the product of the author's imagination.